Punishment and Moral Responsibility
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1944.tb00984.x |
| Author | D. J. B. Hawkins |
| Date | 01 November 1944 |
| Published date | 01 November 1944 |
PUNISHMENT AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY
205
had
done for the law of crime. Everybody knows the attempt made in
1910
to impose
a
measure
of
judicial control upon the activities of the
unions, and the legislative event to which it led in
1913.
That,
at
one time,
this “controlling” policy was even extended to the domestic affairs of the
unions,
is
not often emphasised. No intervention of Parliament was
necessary to scotch this tendency, because the Courts themselves, in the
Russell
case, took the steps which were required to restore the situation.
But the three decisicins analysed above have never been overruled. One
day they may be brought to light, and it will then be a question of judicial
policy rather than of law whether their “controlling” tendency will find
favour in the eyes of the Courts.
0.
KAHN-FREUND.
PUNISHMENT AND MORAL
RESPONSIBILITY
UR
national reluctance to discuss abstract principles did compara-
tively little harm when there was
a
certain instinctive unanimity
about sound fundamentals
;
in such circumstances
a
healthy moral
instinct yields better results than an inadequate abstract theory. The man
who merely knows that chicken is wholesome, as Aristotle remarks, is
more likely to restore you to health than the man who knows that light
meat is easily digested but does not know what kinds of meat are light. At
present, however, when instinctive unanimity has disappeared,
it
becomes
imperative to reflect upon abstract principles if we are not to submit to
the casual influence of gusts of emotion.
You
can muddle through mly
with the aid of sound instincts; without them
you
make the muddle
but
you do not get through.
At present, then, the moral philosopher cannot but be concerned with
the growing lack of recognition of moral responsibility and with the effects
of this neglect upon the conception of punishment.
If
moral responsibility
is
a
fact, it is a very important fact for those to consider who deal with
the making and administration
of
the laws. Hence
a
moralist may be
permitted to bring the abstract principles which it is his function to discuss
to the attention of those who are concerned with their concrete application.
The plain man, if asked how punishment is justified, would reply that
it
is deserved, that
a
guilty act demands punishment. In other words,
the theory
of
punishment which is assumed prior to reflection is
a
retribu-
tive theory. Nevertheless it must be admitted that there are considerable
difficulties to be overcome before the retributive view of punishment
justifies itself to reflection.
To
inflict suffering on an offender seems merely
to be adding the evil of suffering to the evil of the offence, unless there
be some ground other than the offence itsel€ to make this reasonable. That,
as we all know, is why many people have given up trying to find the
-ethical basis of punishment in its reference to the wrong act which is past,
and seek it instead in the future effects of reformation and deterrence. A
purely reformative theory, seeming
at
first sight much kinder than the old
retributive view, commends itself easily to
a
vague moral idealism, and
is
perhaps now the predominant opinion among those who are halfway
between the spontaneous reaction of the piain inan and the analytic
reflection of the moral philosopher.
0
To continue reading
Request your trial